Liquid Crystal Polarisation Converter Arrays Based on Microholes Patterned Hydrophobic Layers

In this study, a facile method was developed for the fabrication of liquid crystal (LC) polarisation converter arrays. To this end, arrays of LC droplets were first formed self-assembly by scribing LC onto microholes patterned hydrophobic layers, in which LC director was radially aligned in each microhole. This is because the special function of hydrophobic layer-amorphous fluoropolymer poly(butenyl vinyl) ether (also known as CYTOP), which aligns the nematic LC director perpendicular to the substrate surface. The twist-radially LC cells were assembled by combining these microholes-patterned layer with homogeneous polyimide (PI_∥) substrate, which could change linearly polarised light to radially or azimuthally polarised light depending on the polarisation direction of the incident light. The obtained LC polarisation converter arrays were easy to fabricate with simple processing and patterned arrays over large areas. Furthermore, the CYTOP layers exhibited high transmittance in the visible light region combined with superior temperature resistant. In sum, the proposed LC polarisation converter arrays look promising for future applications in biological tissue analysis, particle trapping and accelerating, optical data storage, laser cutting and material processing.